Pressing Matters

I didn't want to do it, but I had to. That is, iron my skirt. My linen skirt - you know the kind that gets wrinkled again as you are putting it on after ironing it. Probably no one else at the conference would be able to tell I had ironed it, but I had to do it because I would know. So I went to the closet and removed the ironing board. Then I reached up on the shelf for the iron. Wow, I said to myself, this iron is so light. This won't be bad at all.

With a lighter heart, I set up the board and plugged in the iron. After looking all over it for the on/off dial, switch, button or something, I finally noticed a raised button that extended the length of the handle. Sure enough, when I pushed it, it lit up and the iron began to warm up. There, I congratulated myself, now I'm ready. This'll be a cinch.

By the time I had the skirt situated just so on the board, the iron was hot, so I began sliding it over the skirt. It was so light that I decided to be really playful with it. I stuck just my index finger under the handle and with a mere nudge of the knuckle this way or that, the iron continued to glide over the linen. But then I noticed that the wrinkles were not actually disappearing. I picked the iron up and felt the skirt. It was barely warm. So I looked at the iron, and that's when I realized the on/off button must have been pushed by my palm because it was no longer lit. Undaunted, I proclaimed aloud, "No problem. I'll just continue ironing with one finger. That way I won't press the handle at all," and I pushed the button again.

My blithe attitude lasted about thirty seconds because as I ironed, making very sure that I didn't press the handle, I began to notice once again that the wrinkles weren't flattening out. Oh, my goodness, I shouted silently, the thing has turned off again, all by itself. However, the skirt was only half pressed and unfortunately, it was the back half. So I had to press on (pun intended :)

I examined the iron one more time to see if there might be some dial/switch/button or something I had inadvertantly touched, but there was nothing. So I pressed the handle and began in earnest to push that baby over the skirt. It had become a contest, a race if you will. I held my breath, pursed my lips, crouched in a Ninja position and attacked. Yet the iron cut off after twenty or thirty seconds. By this time, my original delight with the iron had disappeared. I am ashamed to say that, even though I was attending a Christian conference, I said to the offending piece of plastic, "You're stupid, stupid, stupid. Why won't you just iron my skirt?!?"

My next inoffensive thought was, This would have been so much easier if the iron had a manual. Of course, I don't know if I'd have taken the time to read the manual until after all this stuff had happened (after all, the iron was so light and I knew how to work an iron, didn't I?). But reading it certainly would have saved me time and trouble.

There's a spiritual lesson in this. Do you get it? Psalm 119:105